Well, few theories are ever immutably "proven." It's far easier to prove something false than true, and the more you prove that the opposite of a theory is false, the stronger the argument for its truth. That's why people try to disprove the null hypothesis, not the other way around. But I'm nit-picking here.
you have to be able to correlate the data with an objective independently measured result.
"The data" here would be various measures of intelligence such as IQ tests, and they are correlated with a wide variety of objective, independently-measured results ranging from success in school to likelihood of dying in a car accident to likelihood of spending time in prison to the same measures taken on people of varying genetic similarity. And yes, they control for things like socioeconomic status when deciding how well the measurement of intelligence predicts these things. I don't see how this violates your definition of proving a theory.
No, IQ tests, etc are not perfect measures of g. In fact, the loadings of any particular test on g and on other factors is generally publically-available information. g is, basically, a mathematical construct - we know it's there, we don't necessarily know everything about its nature. (Sounds like a lot of things in physics, doesn't it?) What kind of research would you recommend to find out its exact nature, if you're so displeased with the research that has been done so far? I'm honestly interested, if you actually have some idea and aren't just throwing out criticisms of a field you're not actually familiar with, because it's one thing I plan to conduct research in (once I finish this pesky PhD).
I know, I know. I've often thought about making up random references for outrageous claims in slashdot comments, knowing that no one will ever bother to check them.
When I say intelligence, I generally mean g, the general factor of intelligence that IQ tests are trying (with varying success) to measure. We don't have a firm grasp on exactly what g is cognitively or biologically; it's really mostly a mathematical construct. I'd personally put money on it eventually coming down to faster firing of neurons and more efficient connection-making between them, or something along those lines. If you'd like more info on that, I recommend The g Factor by Arthur Jensen. If you think that means I'm biased, you're probably right - I tend to be biased toward the theories that have the most proof behind them.
Creativity is much harder to define, and probably has even more lay and scholarly defintions than intelligence. Depending on the definition, it can be more or less closely related to intelligence - but overall, most scholarly definitions of creativity leave you with a set of skills that are not unrelated to g, but are also not heavily g-loaded. The gist seems to be that you're unlikely to have high creativity without at least somewhat above average intelligence, but the two are not perfectly linked. You can have high g without particularly high creativity (although your behavior may defy many lay theories of intelligent behavior, and really "intelligent behavior" is a different construct than "intelligence" anyhow). But anyhow, even without an exact definition for creativity, I can tell you how I differentiate them - creativity isn't g, and there's no proof that it is.
Sure, he presents a lot of prior information that the theory explains. But as for predictive power (which valid scientific theories need), there really hasn't been any proof. Even in papers defending the theory (eg, Chen, 2004 - teacher's college record) they don't manage to produce proof of this. In fact, in that particular article Chen sidesteps the issue of predictive validity entirely. If you can show me an empirical study that has shown that MI has any predictive power, I would love to see it. Part of the problem is that Gardner doesn't seem to feel any need to provide such proof, so he really hasn't even tried. g, however, has a long history of being a decent predictor of future outcomes - not great, it only accounts for like 30-40% of the variability on most things, but that's higher than almost any other single factor found so far. It even predicts better than things like parents' income level and occupation.
I'm not saying that it's not *possible* that MI could be a perfectly valid theory that has strong predictive power. But 20+ years is enough time to at least start to find out, and nobody's produced any proof so far.
The correct response is to realize that intelligence simply isn't all that. (I know this point will be a tough sell on Slashdot, where intelligence is particularly valued.) It's perfectly ok not to be "intelligent", and play to your other strengths.
Absolutely. Creativity and motivation have been shown to have as much of an effect on a person's success (however you want to define it) in many areas as intelligence. Having low or high intelligence has certain things that come along with it, but it's not the end-all and be-all of your life - it means certain things are more or less likely, but it doesn't make any absolute statements.
I doubt it'll ever be truly settled in a "hard" manner until we can put you in a scanner and read out some numbers as to your ability to do X, Y, and Z - but I think the field is a bit more mature than you give it credit for. As I said, it just doesn't get out into the mainstream media that much, because if anyone were to think that IQ tests actually have some *gasp* predictive validity, then all of society will come crashing down around us. Or so many people would seem to have you think.
The problem is, this theory has been around for over 20 years (Howard Gardner's "Frames of Mind" in the mid-80s) but in that time, there has been zero empirical evidence for it. Whereas theories based on "g", or the general factor of intelligence that IQ tests *try* to measure (but do so with varying levels of accuracy) has about a century of pretty solid data behind it.
See, people have actually thought about these issues, you just don't hear about it in the media. (Except Gardner's Multiple Intelligences theory, which has zero data to back it up.) You should work into the work of John Carroll, and his hierarchical model of intelligence.
A symbiosis rarely occurs and when it does, it's usually forced (humans raising cattle for milk).
Not necessarily forced. I read a book a few months ago that uses a variety of anthropological and biological evidence to suggest that domestication (of both plants and animals) arose evolutionarily as a symbiotic relationship that may even have initially benefitted the domestic species more than it did the humans. Look at any domestic species, then at its wild counterparts - which is doing better evolutionarily? The domestic species have someone higher on the food chain making sure they reproduce like crazy - of course they're winning!
If humans were suddenly wiped off the face of the earth, what would happen to all those dogs, cats, cows, sheep, and corn stalks? You might say, well, dogs and cats can live ferally pretty well - but generally when they are feral, it's near humans and depending largely on civilization for sources of food and shelter. Yes, we may be destroying species by our presence, but if we were suddenly gone I'd bet that hundreds of domestic species would follow pretty rapidly.
You think it's bad in sports! They're just catching up with the rest of schools. You can't give kids Fs or keep them behind a grade because it'll hurt their feelings. You can't put kids in accelerated classes or skip them a grade because it'll hurt the OTHER kids' feelings.
It's only just starting in sports, but soon it'll be just like the academic subjects: Everyone who wants to play a sport gets randomly distributed onto teams of mixed ability levels, and everyone is encouraged to play at the median level. Those who are faster, more flexible, more skilled, etc will have to sit on the sidelines until the rest of the team "catches up". The ones with real talent will have to look to outside programs to have any chance at developing their skills further.
Good student? Not if he's seriously considering using this shit for his thesis. He obviously wasn't paying attention to his research methods class OR his wife.
But I seriously doubt this type of data collection is going to fly for a PhD thesis. I hope you're a Master's student, your advisor is ridiculously lenient and he/she has somehow never heard of confirmation bias.
Too much to ask me to limit my research to the physical holdings of my school's library? To have to wait weeks for an inter-library loan for any other material that might be important for a big paper? Hells yes. Nearly all decent academic journals are online now, and there's no possible reason for me to waste time physically tracking down articles in the library if I don't have to.
I've had computer access at five universities in the past two years, and none do anything like this. Each in a different state, three private, two public, all in the top 50 (USN&WR), all but one in the top 20. Maybe it's common, but not at good schools. Which schools does your CIO really want to emulate?
So, it's not clear to me most snails live long enough to get cancer.
I've heard a few other people say things about animals "not living long enough to get cancer." I'd like to point out that domestic rats only live 1.5-3 years, but are susceptible to cancer. Tumors in general are actually very very common (particularly mammary or pituitary, both have incidence rates of over 60% in unspayed females), though most aren't malignant. But malignant tumors in rats less than 2 years old certainly do happen, and not rarely.
That said, I don't know if radiation exposure would work fast enough to cause cancer in two years - but many small animals also have a much faster metabolism than humans, which could make a big difference.
Thankfully, the safety systems of the bombs prevented a nuclear explosion, but the conventional explosions nevertheless distributed a large quantity of radioactive bomb guts over a wide area (thus the contamination problems mentioned).
Ah, thank you. I did RTFA, but it wasn't very clear on what kind of explosion happened. It said they detonated, but I didn't know there were safeties to ensure they didn't *really* detonate. Which left a lot of questions in my head.
You're right, evolution is not about becoming "perfect." But that's not why saving imperfect babies could put us at a disadvantage when it comes to a situation like nuclear holocaust.
Let's say humans decide to do their damnedest to save every baby born into this radiation-filled world. Lots of these babies are infertile, lots have other problems that will lead them to never having babies of their own. Let's say I have a baby with such problems. Because I'm determined to save that baby, I will probably not have another baby again for a while (maybe a couple of years) while I work to keep this one alive. I may not have ANY more babies because I'm so determined to help this one! And this one baby that I've saved won't have any more babies. If the entire species does this, eventually it will lead to population decline because we'd be focusing our resources and time on activities that won't lead, ultimately, to proliferation. We put the good of each individual baby over the good of our species as a whole.
Some other species - rats, let's say - has less concern about individual babies. A mother rat gives birth to a litter of six, and can tell that half of them have something wrong? She eats those three so that she can nurse the others. If they're all no good? They'll all be eaten so she can start over with a fresh litter. Or if it's not immediately obvious, they'll die fairly quickly because she can't use medical technology to save them. Either way, she has another litter sooner rather than later.
Aside from the obvious fact that rats' gestation and child-rearing times are so much less than humans, a higher percentage of rats that make it to adulthood will actually be capable of having more babies, because the "imperfect" rats will die quickly and free up resources for potential healthy rats.
So overall, the rat population will increase (or at least decrease less quickly) while the human population, past the first generation, will be vulnerable to a steep dropoff. You do have a point about genetic variation - but a human that can't have babies is EXACTLY equivalent to a dead human in the evolutionary sense - except that it takes up resources that a dead human wouldn't.
Don't forget all the extras most DVDs come with. If you actually like watching the deleted scenes, outtakes, etc etc, that can add a lot of value to the disc that you don't get just d/ling the movie itself.
- Super Mario 3
- Tetris Attack
- Yahoo! Pyramids
- Animal Crossing
- And to a certain extent Mario 1, 2, & Super Mario World, but for some reason I have the details of Mario 3 much more deeply ingrained in my fingers.
Yes, but the article didn't say $.03, it said.03 cents. Which would be 3/10000s of a dollar. It seems to have meant $.03, but they could have just as easily actually paid.03c for all we know, so precision is needed. Definitely one of my pet peeves, guess the AC shares it.
37% is closer to one-third (33.3%) than 27% is. In fact, 27% is closer to one-fourth than it is to one-third. Trying to skew the perception of the numbers?
Heck, as flexible as Wal-Mart's return policy is, you don't really need to buy it there to return it when you have a problem. You might not get back the exact amount you spent, but I doubt the difference would be more than a dollar or two.
For Christmas last year, an aunt bought me a DVD set that I already had. Unfortunately, the wrapping on it was torn, so most places wouldn't take it as a return because it had been "opened." My family all told me Wal-Mart would take it - and sure enough, they did. No receipt, torn wrapper.
Slashdot Mirror
If I can play as Margaret, I may have to actually install a game on my computer.
(Explanation: I consider myself to have enough distractions on my computer via the web, and only play games on consoles.)
Well, few theories are ever immutably "proven." It's far easier to prove something false than true, and the more you prove that the opposite of a theory is false, the stronger the argument for its truth. That's why people try to disprove the null hypothesis, not the other way around. But I'm nit-picking here.
you have to be able to correlate the data with an objective independently measured result.
"The data" here would be various measures of intelligence such as IQ tests, and they are correlated with a wide variety of objective, independently-measured results ranging from success in school to likelihood of dying in a car accident to likelihood of spending time in prison to the same measures taken on people of varying genetic similarity. And yes, they control for things like socioeconomic status when deciding how well the measurement of intelligence predicts these things. I don't see how this violates your definition of proving a theory.
No, IQ tests, etc are not perfect measures of g. In fact, the loadings of any particular test on g and on other factors is generally publically-available information. g is, basically, a mathematical construct - we know it's there, we don't necessarily know everything about its nature. (Sounds like a lot of things in physics, doesn't it?) What kind of research would you recommend to find out its exact nature, if you're so displeased with the research that has been done so far? I'm honestly interested, if you actually have some idea and aren't just throwing out criticisms of a field you're not actually familiar with, because it's one thing I plan to conduct research in (once I finish this pesky PhD).
I know, I know. I've often thought about making up random references for outrageous claims in slashdot comments, knowing that no one will ever bother to check them.
Creativity is much harder to define, and probably has even more lay and scholarly defintions than intelligence. Depending on the definition, it can be more or less closely related to intelligence - but overall, most scholarly definitions of creativity leave you with a set of skills that are not unrelated to g, but are also not heavily g-loaded. The gist seems to be that you're unlikely to have high creativity without at least somewhat above average intelligence, but the two are not perfectly linked. You can have high g without particularly high creativity (although your behavior may defy many lay theories of intelligent behavior, and really "intelligent behavior" is a different construct than "intelligence" anyhow). But anyhow, even without an exact definition for creativity, I can tell you how I differentiate them - creativity isn't g, and there's no proof that it is.
I'm not saying that it's not *possible* that MI could be a perfectly valid theory that has strong predictive power. But 20+ years is enough time to at least start to find out, and nobody's produced any proof so far.
Absolutely. Creativity and motivation have been shown to have as much of an effect on a person's success (however you want to define it) in many areas as intelligence. Having low or high intelligence has certain things that come along with it, but it's not the end-all and be-all of your life - it means certain things are more or less likely, but it doesn't make any absolute statements.
I doubt it'll ever be truly settled in a "hard" manner until we can put you in a scanner and read out some numbers as to your ability to do X, Y, and Z - but I think the field is a bit more mature than you give it credit for. As I said, it just doesn't get out into the mainstream media that much, because if anyone were to think that IQ tests actually have some *gasp* predictive validity, then all of society will come crashing down around us. Or so many people would seem to have you think.
The problem is, this theory has been around for over 20 years (Howard Gardner's "Frames of Mind" in the mid-80s) but in that time, there has been zero empirical evidence for it. Whereas theories based on "g", or the general factor of intelligence that IQ tests *try* to measure (but do so with varying levels of accuracy) has about a century of pretty solid data behind it.
See, people have actually thought about these issues, you just don't hear about it in the media. (Except Gardner's Multiple Intelligences theory, which has zero data to back it up.) You should work into the work of John Carroll, and his hierarchical model of intelligence.
Apple dying, should get out while they can. Film at 11.
Not necessarily forced. I read a book a few months ago that uses a variety of anthropological and biological evidence to suggest that domestication (of both plants and animals) arose evolutionarily as a symbiotic relationship that may even have initially benefitted the domestic species more than it did the humans. Look at any domestic species, then at its wild counterparts - which is doing better evolutionarily? The domestic species have someone higher on the food chain making sure they reproduce like crazy - of course they're winning!
If humans were suddenly wiped off the face of the earth, what would happen to all those dogs, cats, cows, sheep, and corn stalks? You might say, well, dogs and cats can live ferally pretty well - but generally when they are feral, it's near humans and depending largely on civilization for sources of food and shelter. Yes, we may be destroying species by our presence, but if we were suddenly gone I'd bet that hundreds of domestic species would follow pretty rapidly.
It's only just starting in sports, but soon it'll be just like the academic subjects: Everyone who wants to play a sport gets randomly distributed onto teams of mixed ability levels, and everyone is encouraged to play at the median level. Those who are faster, more flexible, more skilled, etc will have to sit on the sidelines until the rest of the team "catches up". The ones with real talent will have to look to outside programs to have any chance at developing their skills further.
Good student? Not if he's seriously considering using this shit for his thesis. He obviously wasn't paying attention to his research methods class OR his wife.
But I seriously doubt this type of data collection is going to fly for a PhD thesis. I hope you're a Master's student, your advisor is ridiculously lenient and he/she has somehow never heard of confirmation bias.
Too much to ask me to limit my research to the physical holdings of my school's library? To have to wait weeks for an inter-library loan for any other material that might be important for a big paper? Hells yes. Nearly all decent academic journals are online now, and there's no possible reason for me to waste time physically tracking down articles in the library if I don't have to.
I've had computer access at five universities in the past two years, and none do anything like this. Each in a different state, three private, two public, all in the top 50 (USN&WR), all but one in the top 20. Maybe it's common, but not at good schools. Which schools does your CIO really want to emulate?
I've heard a few other people say things about animals "not living long enough to get cancer." I'd like to point out that domestic rats only live 1.5-3 years, but are susceptible to cancer. Tumors in general are actually very very common (particularly mammary or pituitary, both have incidence rates of over 60% in unspayed females), though most aren't malignant. But malignant tumors in rats less than 2 years old certainly do happen, and not rarely.
That said, I don't know if radiation exposure would work fast enough to cause cancer in two years - but many small animals also have a much faster metabolism than humans, which could make a big difference.
Ah, thank you. I did RTFA, but it wasn't very clear on what kind of explosion happened. It said they detonated, but I didn't know there were safeties to ensure they didn't *really* detonate. Which left a lot of questions in my head.
Let's say humans decide to do their damnedest to save every baby born into this radiation-filled world. Lots of these babies are infertile, lots have other problems that will lead them to never having babies of their own. Let's say I have a baby with such problems. Because I'm determined to save that baby, I will probably not have another baby again for a while (maybe a couple of years) while I work to keep this one alive. I may not have ANY more babies because I'm so determined to help this one! And this one baby that I've saved won't have any more babies. If the entire species does this, eventually it will lead to population decline because we'd be focusing our resources and time on activities that won't lead, ultimately, to proliferation. We put the good of each individual baby over the good of our species as a whole.
Some other species - rats, let's say - has less concern about individual babies. A mother rat gives birth to a litter of six, and can tell that half of them have something wrong? She eats those three so that she can nurse the others. If they're all no good? They'll all be eaten so she can start over with a fresh litter. Or if it's not immediately obvious, they'll die fairly quickly because she can't use medical technology to save them. Either way, she has another litter sooner rather than later.
Aside from the obvious fact that rats' gestation and child-rearing times are so much less than humans, a higher percentage of rats that make it to adulthood will actually be capable of having more babies, because the "imperfect" rats will die quickly and free up resources for potential healthy rats.
So overall, the rat population will increase (or at least decrease less quickly) while the human population, past the first generation, will be vulnerable to a steep dropoff. You do have a point about genetic variation - but a human that can't have babies is EXACTLY equivalent to a dead human in the evolutionary sense - except that it takes up resources that a dead human wouldn't.
Don't forget all the extras most DVDs come with. If you actually like watching the deleted scenes, outtakes, etc etc, that can add a lot of value to the disc that you don't get just d/ling the movie itself.
- Super Mario 3
- Tetris Attack
- Yahoo! Pyramids
- Animal Crossing
- And to a certain extent Mario 1, 2, & Super Mario World, but for some reason I have the details of Mario 3 much more deeply ingrained in my fingers.
Yes, but the article didn't say $.03, it said .03 cents. Which would be 3/10000s of a dollar. It seems to have meant $.03, but they could have just as easily actually paid .03c for all we know, so precision is needed. Definitely one of my pet peeves, guess the AC shares it.
37% is closer to one-third (33.3%) than 27% is. In fact, 27% is closer to one-fourth than it is to one-third. Trying to skew the perception of the numbers?
However, convincing them not to pee everywhere they go, including liberally in their own beds, is impossible.
For Christmas last year, an aunt bought me a DVD set that I already had. Unfortunately, the wrapping on it was torn, so most places wouldn't take it as a return because it had been "opened." My family all told me Wal-Mart would take it - and sure enough, they did. No receipt, torn wrapper.